Russia day 5

Day 5

- Pushkin

- Russian wooden restaurant "Podvorie"

- Tamara

Today seems like we didn't do much, but we had quite a bit of travel time
getting to the places we wanted to get to.
Todays amazingness was Pushkin and Catherine's Palace.

Here we are on the good ol' metro!

 At the station was this awesome little man playing the accordion.
You will see this quite a bit in Russia and it just fills me with happiness whenever it happens!

 You take the Metro to the bottom/last stop and then take some little buses/vans out to Pushkin. You get out at the stop (which was just around the corner from my apartment there when I served there for only 2 weeks to finish off my mission) and look up the street and boom! There you are!
Catherine's Palace

 Right as you walk in, this dude is playing the flute. incredible. We were there several hours and he was still in that spot playing! What the?!

I stinkin love this palace. Looks a lot like the Hermitage, but this one is by favorite color :)

 The gardens around it are insanely beautiful and seriously just perfect. In fact- if you walk on the grass around there you'll get an angry Russian man blowing his whistle at you and chasing you down. Luckily it didn't happen to us, but we saw it several times and got a good laugh from a far!

Cutest selfie I couldn't help myself but catch them in the act!

 awwweeee heart eyes

 Those trees?! I mean come on! 

 We went inside and did a tour of the palace. gold. EVERYWHERE

 Pretty shot looking out a window. 

Can you notice the door ways that keep going and going? again I say- so. much. gold.

 One famous and stinkin incredible room is the Amber room in the palace. The walls are covered and decorated in amber! Pictures aren't allowed- so I had to be sneaky. shhhh. 

 This was the best. Dad just propped his little head on his audio guide and started falling asleep standing up! hahaha 

The grounds/park around the palace is soooo big and occasionally has beautiful buildings, statues, structures, etc. of all different styles. Such a pretty place to just walk and enjoy being outside!

Also need to document, at Russian weddings, the wedding party always goes around the city to take pictures at all the main stops. This bride had the right idea to come to Pushkin for photos. Even though tourists will be in the background, or be like dad and always have to sneak a pic of you as well. haha seriously just about every time, he will go and snag a pic! He should start a business ;)

 He's just a fun guy. 

Cectpa Clark (my mission President's wife) had recommended a restaurant (Restaurant Podvorie) nearby that has great Russian food, but also a fun Russian atmosphere because everything is painted and wooden and just adorable. Awesome place!

The server was ordering our drinks and he asked if we wanted Kvas- which is fermented bread...who knows what....it is just the worst. I tried it on the mish and gosh it's not even close to being good! I made Kode and dad try it and here were their reactions..

..Not good. haha

On our way to a visit we got on a Tram and finally got a "happy ticket!" Each ticket has 6 numbers on them, if you add the first three numbers and they equal the amount of the last three numbers, then Russians believe that you'll have good luck! We got one! Wahoo! Lucky us

We were able to meet up with Tamara, a very spunky member of the church. Her husband was there as well and I had never met him before, so it was fun to get to know him more. They are so generous and fed us bread and meat, candy, little desserts, tea, and watermelon. They talked our ears off about their travels and were just so fun to visit with! They even gave us a few things like some shells from Crimea (it's their absolute favorite place and were so excited to tell us all about it) oh and even a map of Crimea for my dad haha, a pin for me to always remember them, a little doll for my mom...gosh they just kept going and going and wouldn't let us say no. 

I love ending the day visiting people I love! 

 Also- just have to document this tiny, creepy, squishy elevator. We're still alive! Probably thanks to that lucky ticket earlier...